For the older people, their plight recalls another era, when they fled communist Vietnam to rebuild their lives in the United States. In New Orleans 2005, like Saigon in April 1975, many people left with uncertain futures and only the clothes on their backs.

"They're slowly trickling in," Mother Superior Theresa Hang Pham says at noon. "Some people still have a day or two left at their hotel."

Sister Pham eats between phone calls from Houstonians who heard about the nuns' efforts.

"Yes, we'll accept whatever you can donate," she tells a caller in Vietnamese. "People have dropped off bags of rice, noodles, dried shrimp, towels. I got five, six volunteers who are building a bathroom for the victims. What's your name? Will you check back tomorrow to see if we need anything else?"

A man carrying a toddler stops hesitantly in front of the nun.

"Did you just arrive?" she asks. "Come in, come in. Have something to eat."

When Sister Pham, who left Vietnam as a young nun in 1970 to study in the United States, heard people were sleeping in their cars and on the floors of Hong Kong City Mall, she was moved to convert the convent into a shelter.

About 50 nuns live here. Their multipurpose hall can sleep 250 people. If needed, another 50 people can stay at the formation house where Dominican novices train in Missouri City.

The nuns barely cover their own monthly operational costs with donations and the salaries of sisters who work as teachers and nurses. They bolster their income by growing vegetables and selling silk flower arrangements.

"But how can we ignore the needs of our brothers and sisters?" the mother superior asks. "We also trust in God's providence to provide what we need when we help others."

A handful of men have gathered around a television, glued to the grainy picture of hurricane-devasted New Orleans.

"I have to keep busy," Le Nguyen says. "I'll go crazy otherwise. I don't want to think. I don't want to remember. Our shrimping boat is gone. Our house is gone. What is left? What?"

Back in the hall, the men watch reports that hundreds, perhaps thousands are dead in New Orleans, Biloxi and Mobile.

Kim Dao's eyes glance over the men, then back to her small purse.

"The box is about the same size," she whispers. "Green. Pretty. It contained my baby's name card, clothes, his picture. Why did I leave it behind? I always take it with me. Always. He lived three days, three years ago."

A voice cuts through the solemnness.

"Dinner is ready," says a nun. "Come and eat. Come while the food is still hot."

Dao attempts a smile for the nun.

"Perhaps," she starts, "God is trying to show us all something. Perhaps he's trying to tell us that whatever we have will not last, and that in the end, we have only our faith. That can last."

Cots line the wall. There are also about a dozen air mattresses, plus rugs, exercise mats and beach towels for the evacuees to sleep on.

Four-year-old Marie sleeps on a stack of donated blankets. Her mother, Hue Nguyen, is talking to a relative on a cell phone.

"Please tell everyone back in Vietnam to pray for us," she says.

She shakes her head at the irony. Thirty years ago, Vietnamese refugees in the United States were praying for relatives and friends back in Vietnam. She chokes back the tears.

No time for that.

Her 12-year-old son, Johnny, has only one catheter left. Confined to a wheelchair, the soft-spoken boy needs a thin tube inserted in his bladder to drain urine. His spinal cord snapped in a car accident when he was 2.

"I brought only enough for three days," she says. "I didn't think we would be gone for longer than that. In the past, we would return home in a day or two."

Nearby, My Nguyen is connecting 24-by-24-inch squares of foam for a bed.

"It's a children's play mat," he says with a chuckle. "It'll provide a little cushion for tonight."

As he assembles the multicolored puzzle mat, he recalls how his parents pieced their life back together after the Vietnam War ended.

"Thirty years ago, we left our homeland for America," Nguyen says. "Thirty years later, we left our home again — for Houston."

Ngoc Dung Nguyen, 36, hasn't prayed in days. Unusual for a woman who christened her children after saints. She's been watching the news, listening to the radio.

"History repeats itself," she says.

"My parents fled North Vietnam for South Vietnam in 1954. I fled from Vietnam for America in 1975. Now in 2005, my children fled from the only home they knew, much like I did, except they fled in a car and I fled on a boat," she says. "Is this the fate of the Vietnamese people? To always flee?"

Her daughter offers a hug. Clutching the child, Nguyen announces her decision to leave New Orleans — for good.

"Return to New Orleans? For what?" the airline employee asks. "No, this is the last time we will flee from our home."

As Nguyen prepares her children for bed, she takes a deep breath.

"Perhaps this is the time to pray again now that we are at the convent," she says. "I feel relaxed, knowing that we have a place to stay temporarily. I will ask the Lord to please give me the faith to go on and to start over, again."